A/N: I do not own Stargate Atlantis or it's characters. If I did, I wouldn't be writing fanfiction. I'd be writing 5 more seasons.
Setting/Summary: Takes place after "Brain Storm". I know it's a terrible story title, but I focused on the story itself.
A Team Sheppard Christmas
The Athosians had learned of Christmas from the Lanteans the first year that it had rolled around. It had been difficult to explain the holiday to the Athosians, attempts at describing Santa Clause in particular caused a great amount of confusion. Fortunately, there had been several Christmas movies brought to Atlantis and they did a good enough job at explaining the season and it's traditions.
The Christmas season was a time of joy for everybody on Atlantis. The only exception being one, Rodney McKay. It's not that he disliked Christmas, far from it in fact. Christmas was one of his favorite times of the year, especially on Atlantis. He found the lack of over commercialization to be a great relief. Not to mention the fact that he had actual friends that cared about him to spend it with. This year was even more special to him, he was going to spend it with the woman that he loved—and she loved him back!
Rodney's thoughts of the Christmas season were quickly replaced by the reason that he was not as joyous as the rest of Atlantis when another arrow whizzed past his thigh.
"Sheppard!" Rodney yelled to the man running ahead of him.
"What?" John Sheppard shouted over his shoulder to Rodney.
"If I get shot in the ass again….because of you.…right before Christmas.…I swear…….I swear…….I'll……I'll," Rodney began, gasping for breath as he ran. The thought of getting into better shape briefly entered his mind, very briefly.
"You'll what? Not be able to sit down properly for a week? That was one of the funniest weeks I can remember!" John shouted, stealing a glance back at Rodney as he heard his teammate's exhaustion. Thoughts of ordering McKay to begin a tri-weekly workout routine entered his head.
"Oh!...Haha…..You wouldn't be……..be laughing if…………if it………happened to you!.....I….I swear……you are…….are the most…." Rodney began his retaliation.
"Besides, how was I supposed to know I wasn't allowed to kiss the beautiful priestess back!" John quickly added.
"Perhaps we can talk about this once we meet up with Ronon and Lorne's team at the Gate of the Ancestors." Teyla interrupted.
The three of them had gone to meet with a village they had found out about in the Ancient database. The village was only about five miles from the gate; the database indicated that the people here had great potential as trade partners. Mr. Woolsey decided to send Sheppard's team to make first contact on behalf of Atlantis. He had also sent Lorne's team as backup, because the database also indicated that the village's religion did not allow firearms. To that extent Sheppard's Team minus Ronon, who would not leave his blaster behind and stayed with Lorne's team, went to the village without their guns to begin trade talks. Everything had gone well until a certain beautiful priestess has come to give her special…blessing to the Atlantis team. They were now running for their lives while being chased down by angry villagers…..again.
"Ronon!" John shouted into is comm, "Where are you!?"
Suddenly a red burst of light shot past Sheppard's team and hit the ground in front of where the pursuing villagers were.
"I'm here." Ronon replied over his comm. "What'd McKay say this time?" he fired several more shots until the villagers had stopped and were maintaining a safe distance.
"What?" McKay replied, still quite out of breath and gasping for air, "It...wasn't….me….It….Kirk…..fault." McKay emphasized the point by waving in the general direction of the Lieutenant Colonel before collapsing to the ground.
"Come on McKay. We gotta move." John said as he picked Rodney up by the vest, leading him up the hill that separated them from the Stargate, while keeping an eye on the villagers.
"I know….just….five minutes….please…then I'll…..hey…….hey…….ok…..O.K…..I'm Good!" He actually was able to walk by himself by the time they had reached the top of the hill. By the time Sheppard's team was at the top of the hill Lorne and one Marine had caught up with Ronon. Sheppard could see that Lorne had left two marines by the gate.
"Colonel, are you guys alright?" Lorne directed his question to Sheppard while keeping his eyes, and a P90, trained on the villagers.
"Yeah, thanks. I don't think we have to worry about them for now. But I doubt that we should expect a Christmas card from them." John answered. Once they saw the mob turn back and return to their village the teams headed back to the gate.
"So," Ronon began "this was Sheppard's fault?" He turned to John and asked, "What was her name?"
John looked at Ronon and began to reply "How come you people automatically assume a woman had something to do with it whenever I'm involved."
To this John only received the same look from everyone. It translated to 'Who are you trying to fool?'
"Delphilia." Rodney stated. When he received a confused look from Lorne and Ronon he rolled his eyes and said, "Her name. It was Delphilia. She's their High Priestess."
Ronon smirked at this.
"Hmm. Blonde?" Lorne asked
"Her hair was red actually." Came Teyla's response.
"Really? Nice change of pace for you Colonel." Lorne replied, slapping Sheppard on the back. He quickly moved away at the look he received back from Sheppard and began to dial the gate back to Atlantis.
"Well that wasn't so bad." Sheppard said to his team.
"Not so Bad! Are you crazy! I could have gotten killed! Or shot in the ass again!" McKay cried out.
"Well you didn't. So just, chill. I'll get you an extra serving of Christmas dinner O.k." Sheppard wanted to stop any rant that might have been on its way from the scientist.
The gate activated, with its trademark *ka-woosh*, and they got permission to return home.
"Yes, you will." Rodney seemed placated with the promise of more food from what he considered to be one of the few good meals of the year.
Back on Atlantis the Team gave their de-briefing to Mr. Woolsey and were dismissed. He fortunately seemed to be in the Christmas spirit and didn't lecture them for very long.
"So tomorrow's Christmas eve," Sheppard said to his team as they walked out of Mr. Woolsey's office, "Is everybody ready for the gift exchange?"
"Yes. I am very excited that Mr. Woolsey had the teams do this this year. I can only hope that it will be…different from last year's Secret Santa even." Teyla replied remembering the travesty that was last year's event.{A/N:Read any Christmas Secret Santa Fanfiction from last year and choose your favorite to be part of this storyline. This story's reader interactive!(but only for this part. Haha)}
"I'll meet up with you guys for dinner." Ronon said, then turned and headed back into the gate room. He walked up the stairs and stood in front of Chuck. Seeing Ronon, Chuck waved over the other Gate Techs.
"O.k., so who and why?" Chuck quietly asked Ronon. The other techs leaned in awaiting Ronon's reply.
Ronon smirked and said, "Sheppard."
This got several "yes"s and several "no's" from the Techs.
Ronon's continued with, "High Priestess."
"No!" "I should have picked that one" "What do women see in him?" Were some of the responses from the Gate Techs.
Chuck, however, was extremely happy. "Yes! Hahaha! You heard the man! Now pay up!" Chuck continued to laugh as the other tech handed him his winning from the betting pool. This was a favorite pastime of the Gate Techs, betting on which of Sheppard's team would cause a problem next, and what the reason would be.
Ronon continued to smirk as he left the gate room. Back on Sateda, that kind of betting would never have been tolerated. He knew he should be worried, that everyone expected their team to get into so much trouble, but he wasn't. This was his team, his new family. They'd gone through a lot together, and he was going to make sure they keep coming back.
A/N: This started as a quick back-story but turned into the "adventure/action" chapter of the story. The next chapter will be nothing but a big Teamshep Fic, and McKeller. The Gift exchange idea came to me, because it seemed like a more controlled version of the common Secret Santa fic. This first version is un-Beta'd because I wanted it to be up before Christmas. I'll have the next chapter up before Santa starts his rounds. :) Hope you enjoy! Love reviews!!!!